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Topic: neapolitan with a poolish (Read 2446 times)

using a poolish to get extra flavor out of same day dough seems pretty easy.using ten percent of the flour and the same in water with a pinch of yeast and letting it sit overnight gives a nice boost to same day dough.it doesn't take much effort and i thing it impacts flavor and texture,any thoughts?i use this for my last bake and i thought the dough had more flavor and a lighter chew.

Scrumptious lookin' pies, Larry! I have really liked some of my poolish pies, particularly when I've used CY. But it really does elevate even ADY and IDY too... And as Marion said, it can come close to sourdough, though personally I still prefer my Ischia and Camaldoli pies, ala Craig, with small amounts (1%) of starter and long RT ferments. But if someone didn't want to fiddle with starter cultures, poolishes are easily the way to go for heightened flavor and softness/extensibality (acid additions).

I use a poolish for my doughs all the time. It develops great flavor and builds a stronger, healthier dough. I would say that doing a poolish ahead of time is always better than not doing a pre-ferment at all. I used to do a sourdough starter, but grew tired of caring for it, so now it is poolish all the time.

I don't know—I do like a poolish as I posted, but I have had really excellent results using VERY little commercial yeast (I use ADY), like around .024%-.036%, and then a long 24 hour room temperature ferment. Simpler than a poolish, and allows a bit more flexibility regarding bake time. Sometimes poolish based doughs are a PITA, as the yeast is really active when you add the poolish to the mix and make the dough—it rises FAST, very fast, and sometimes you have very little leeway regarding bake time.

I don't know—I do like a poolish as I posted, but I have had really excellent results using VERY little commercial yeast (I use ADY), like around .024%-.036%, and then a long 24 hour room temperature ferment. Simpler than a poolish, and allows a bit more flexibility regarding bake time. Sometimes poolish based doughs are a PITA, as the yeast is really active when you add the poolish to the mix and make the dough—it rises FAST, very fast, and sometimes you have very little leeway regarding bake time.

I agree. I like using a poolish for my vietnamese baguettes. I did 2 separate tests incorporating a poolish technique into my NY dough and I didn't like it as much. Maybe I need to make further adjustments, I don't know. I can't recall if I have done it with NP dough though. Obviously the trick is to retard or cool the dough after the poolish is added if you want to use the dough later. Pies look great Larry, or are those your daughter's pies?

I too have used poolish and it is becoming my preferred method now. This past weekend I used poolish as 30% of the total dough. In addition to it, I mixed a 100% hydration of flour and water that amounts to 20% of the total dough and let that sit in the fridge overnight too--I took this from the pain a l'ancienne method of making baguettes. This mix added a bit more sweetness and a little bit of a nutty flavor to the dough. The next day at mid-morning I made the final dough and let it bulk ferment at 65F-70F for 5 hours and then balled and proof for 4 hours more. I was concerned that the crust will be too bready but it was not. It was one of the most tender crusts I have made. The total hydration was 58%. 100% hyrdration for poolish and 100% hydration for the flour + water batter.

I think poolish-based doughs can be controlled easily by just doing the bulk ferment in a cooler and adding or removing ice depending on how fast you want it to rise.

Are we confusing terms here? I always thought that a STARTER is a generic term for a prefermented flour. A poolish is a preferment that is more watery and a biga is a preferment that is much drier, more like a super stick thick dough. FYI, I maintain two naturally leavened starters that are about pancake batter consistency, maybe a little thicker. I usually use one part water to one part starter to one part water to make what some might call a poolish and then mix my dough.

I don't find keeping the starters going hard at all. I keep them in my cold 'fridge and it slows down their "growth." This winter I screwed up and let them both go for about 8 weeks without using them. I left them out on my counter for two days and "washed" them with about six or seven feedings and they bounced back stronger than ever. You can always freeze some of the starter, poolish, biga, whatever you want to call it incase you kill the stuff you have. I think of it as backing up a hard drive.

I can't tell you the last time I used yeast, 10, 55lb bags and going strong...

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"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." Brillat-Savarin

A "starter" usually refers to sourdough, or wild, yeast strains—whether captured from the air, or grapes, or handed down for hundreds of years from Italian bakeries. Starter cultures almost always include yeast and bacteria cultures that live and work together in a symbotic relationship (most sourdough starter taste actually comes from the bacteria and not the yeast).

A poolish (or biga) usually refers to a mixture made up with commericial yeast—IDY,ADY or CY—all varations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and includes no bacteria right out of the packaging. A poolish (or biga) is a method to extract more flavor (and other effects such as texture) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which while ultra reliable and hearty in terms of rising doughs with gas production, has very little flavor of it's own since it has no bacteria out of the bottle to have a symbotic relationship with. Perhaps the added fermentation time involved with a poolish or biga involves some bacterial action, or maybe it's just the acid accumulation from the yeast, I am not really sure. However the added fermentation really does elevate Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermented doughs to a higher level on many levels, including taste.